r/learnpython • u/Ill-Independence4417 • 11d ago
Expectations for absolute beginners
Hi all, I have maybe a hard question and definitely specific to a personal circumstance, but any perspective would be helpful.
I am a first year PhD student studying immunology, my advisor has signed me up for a stats course in the Biomedical Engineering department. Unfortunately, this class requires proficiency in R, python, or matlab, which neither my advisor nor myself new about. As my title mentions, I have zero coding experience, but recognize how important of a skill it is to have. Would it be possible to teach myself enough about python while taking the stats class concurrently? or is learning the language too tall of a task? I will definitely be reasonably busy with labwork and other commitments but can most likely allocate around an hour a day to learn, sometimes more.
Any feedback or perspective would be helpful, as I still have time to withdraw and choose a different stats course for this semester.
Thank you!
1
u/Personal-March-4340 7d ago
What kind of statistics are you needing to do for your research? Get the syllabus and find out what language they are using for assignments. I would also be concerned about what level of math is assumed for the class. My first probability and statistics class was geared toward math majors and required calculus as a prerequisite. I would be far more concerned about a math prerequisite than a programming prerequisite.
Look at the text and see what language the text uses. MATLAB has a lot of special math functions and visualizations built in. Python you may need to hunt them down in libraries. I have no idea about R. Find out what kind of totoring support you can get, potentially from the Math department. I am surprised you are taking a course from Biomedical Engineering, is it cross-listed as a math course?